Who Were the Sea Peoples?

It is not that we should assume that because some exchange is voluntary, it is mutually beneficial, and therefore moral. To the contrary, our evaluation ought to run in the reverse direction: because some exchange is moral, therefore it is likely to be mutually beneficial. And the reverse holds as well: a coke dealer and an addict are engaged in mutually harmful exchange.

does not mean it is! But Adam Ozimek at least writes as if it does mean that . What would Ozimek say about an adult male propositioning a thirteen-year-old girl? If she goes along with his suggestion, would Ozimek proclaim that the government was interfering with "mutually beneficial exchange" if it prosecuted the guy? If not, then he has already accepted the idea that "paternalism" can sometimes be A-OK. Now, it is a good question as to how far paternalism should extend, and how much we should protect people from their own choices. But Ozimek's pat response to Bloomberg simply pretends the question does not exist. And note: This has nothing to do with "statism": an anarchist legal order would have no less burden to decide these questions than would a "statist" one, unless it were to be pure anarchy in the bad sense, where, say, the mentally incapacitated could be forced to follow through on "contracts" totally exploiting the...